Beasts of fire moved in moments as the observers on the ground found only glimpses of high velocity as the dragons moved across the sky. In some ways, it was like fire, more like transparent winds in the form of fire as they traveled with grace as dragon winds, named the lizards for the sky or fire lizards. The people were in awe, they expected danger, and some were hunched in fear, yet the lizards of fire were a distance away, never in the people’s grasp of the trouble, they were never touched by its fires. Words circled the villages and cities for months about the creatures.

The dragons were real. They flew around the sky as single-fire lizards, but there were also formations like those birds that flew to other regions to escape winter. In the north, the dragons loved the winter as they walked through the snow and bathed in large hot springs; few animals dared to venture towards the hot springs because they feared the dragons. The nearby communities of people patronized the dragons as they protected the village from roving bandits. Some dragons were destructive they caused the storms that came before winter and summer, and they whirled around as if in play, yet dragon scholars knew that the evil priests of the fire mountains controlled the minds of those dragons. But the people were always prepared for the storms. Dragons were portrayed as drawings on walls to ward off the evil ones and bring in the good dragons.

Artists respected them as they created forms in wood carvings, paintings, sculptures, and architecture; buildings from private homes, to public buildings, palaces, and warehouses were structured in ways that resembled dragons. Structures in the form of fire lizards inspired children who made their own dragon toys and pretended they were dragons that flew in the sky. The dragons had created oscillating flames in vertical forms that roamed the skies of twilight, night, morning, and midday, like decorations in the sky; in a way, they seemed painted by a celestial artist inspired by the cultures of dragons. The irregular ending of flames created a one-time form, never were they in the same way, which was observed only once by artists who created them in painted states on murals. In praise of the beneficial dragons of the sky, there were ceremonies, people gathered in large numbers, artist,s and crafters displaying the skill of who created the more significant forms of the fire lizards or dragons. Crowds danced, imitating the conditions of the dragons; flames touched with flames of all colors that were made from gas lamps, that burst light, that fired into the heavens. What were the dragons? Their bodies were composed of fire and flesh; an aura of fire covered them as they swiftly flew as fiery darts leaving behind currents of cool air; it seemed the heat never touched people on the ground. As the dragons appeared to be both lizard and bird, as certain ones had particular wings of thousands of hues, feathers became flames extending leagues behind as they left for other places in the sky. Painters and sculptors continued to be inspired by the dragons.

Robert J. Matsunaga